Containers are often used to facilitate feeding hay and other feed to animals. These containers provide a repository for a quantity of hay from which the animals can self-feed. Various feeder configurations have been sold commercially. A typical feeder includes a cylindrical sheet metal base open at the bottom and top. This kind of feeder helps to separate the hay from animal waste and prevent the animals from walking in the hay. It also prevents the hay from blowing away and being wasted after the level of the hay reaches the sheet metal base. Some prior art feeders include bars extending above as well as below the base. The upper bars are spaced to accommodate the head and neck of the animal, but still permits the hay to be retained in the feeder. The lower bars permit rain to drain from the feeder as well as to make it easier to lift and move the feeder to another location.
A problem with prior art feeders is that they allow the animals to root through or bury their heads in the hay in search of the most palatable hay. As the animals root through the hay, they pull out large quantities of which they then drop a large amount of it on the ground, resulting in waste and contamination. Later, if the animals get around to eating the hay left on the ground, they often ingest contaminants such as sand and animal waste. An animal that buries its head in the hay also subjects the animal to breathing in hay and other dust particles, which can very often, especially for horses, lead to respiratory problems.
Other types of prior art large bale feeders have generally included some type of bale holding cradle which is accessible by livestock from one or more sides of the feeder. In most such feeders, the bale holding cradle is fixed in size which means that, as the hay bale shrinks during feeding, access to the bale by feeding livestock may be interrupted. This can result in wasted hay and also in damage to the feeder as well as the animal as the animal such as horses and cattle push against the feeder in an effort to reach the shrinking hay.